To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a webbrowser that supports HTML5video I’ve only ever been to the theatre as part of a school , university or enrichment programme. For Muslim families, theatre-going isn’t a popular pastime; it’s expensive, inaccessible and doesn’t often tell stories that are reflective or sometimes even interesting to racialised audiences. That is until poet Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan came onto the scene with a new play offering a love story for the ages.
In her debut play Peanut Butter & Blueberries, Suhaiymah sets the scene at a university with two central Muslim characters; Hafsah is the socially aware firecracker offering quick quips to her counterpart Bilal, who cuts a hilarious image while trying to maintain some stoicism. The two-person play follows the connection between the students respectively reading Gender Studies and South Asian Studies as they navigate adolescence in London, having moved from Bradford and Birmingham . Sitting on a park bench, but never touching, Hafsah is taken by Bilal’s choice of sandwich filling, forming the play’s title, and the two grow dear to one another, finding solace as northerners, as Muslims, as two young people learning one another’s quirks and quietly falling in love.
Peanut Butter & Blueberries isn’t just a coming-of-age rom-com though, and explores serious and topical themes; Islamophobia and the government’s Prevent strategy’s effect on Muslims , war PTSD, d.